I know what liberalism is. But the first time I encountered that it is used so often was when I looked into English-speaking social media sites like Reddit two years ago.
Spoiler
It is not common to know about reddit here, I live in Bratwurstland. I just wanted to join the pigeon subreddit back then.
Bourgeois, bourgeois class consciousness, bourgeois thinking, bourgeois revolution, etc. The same with petty bourgeoisie etc. etc.
I have the complete collected works of Lenin physically available in german. I have the most important writings of Marx and Engels with me, as well as Tito, Thälmann, Karl Liebknecht, Stalin, Trotsky, Plekhanov, even Lykassenko and some more. (I dont just buy writings I like, but also writing I dont like)
Liberalism didn’t come up that often, only when it was actually about liberalism. But the way liberals are often referred to on English-language social media sites, including here, is a bit strange to me.
Idk about other languages that much. I also didn’t encountered this kind of usage of liberal in the russian version of Lenin’s writings. Bourgeois, bourgeois class consciousness, bourgeois thinking, bourgeois revolution, etc. The same with petty bourgeoisie etc. etc.
Maybe there some here who know what I am talking about and can explain it to me.
Edit: Why did Voyager destroyed my formattig many times
Edit2: Thank you all for your engagement. You helped me a lot how to understand it more correctly if I read it from someone using english language .
This isn’t a good thing; it’s a result of a concerted effort to make people think Marxism is old and irrelevant.
I really dislike the notion that we should stop using the term ‘bourgeoisie’ just because of the pop notion that it’s an outdated word and that nobody knows how to spell it.
Yes, the English language is constantly evolving and terms fall out of use, but as they do so the language doesn’t just reflect the dominant thought patterns but reinforces them. English has a high chance to remain the most popular global lingua franca even after Western hegemony falls, and the evolution of the language will remain a battle ground.
There is slow progress in people learning that liberalism means liberty for markets and not for people, but most people still think it means liberation of individuals, genders and minorities. The fastest way to ‘liberate’ someone from that error is to get them understanding the class conflict, and the term ‘bourgeoisie’ is still relevant to that.